IT WAS OCTOBER in 1753. At this season Washington had,
in past years, brought to a close his surveys in the Shenandoah Valley and gone home. Now, though winter approached,
his duty was to leave behind all settlements for that wilderness
where the white world shrank to the strength of a sinew and the
aim of a firearm; where another order of men, painted and
strange, moved with the astounding ease of fish in the ocean.
And every step would carry him closer to a European enemy
who might fire or suborn secret shots in the forest. George
Washington could simply disappear.

He knew none of the languages of those with whom he would
deal. To help him negotiate with the white enemy, he selected a
Dutchman, Jacob van Braam, who advertised as a French
teacher and whose knowledge of that language was at least
attested to by the badness of his English. To guide him with the
savages and in wilderness travel, Washington had been instructed by Dinwiddie to enlist Christopher Gist. A rough frontiersman, Gist had previously conducted negotiations with the
tribes for both Virginia and the Ohio Company. Washington
was to discover that, although he seemed "well acquainted with
the Indians' manners and customs," he "knows but little of their
language."
1 Four "servitors" from the most ignorant class that

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